It’s not easy to develop ESL course work around unique content and student needs. I’ve often posted against using "cookie cutter" style course work - buying the level appropriate course book, marching your students though it chapter by chapter until the book and their current level is finished. (Which usually happens at the same time.) Exams or quizzes are administered, results tabulated - and in most cases, the student moves up to the next level where the whole "cookie cutter" process repeats itself. (Another book is purchased, the chapters marched through, the book/level finished, and evaluations fly.)
This methodology is widely employed - at least around Mexico City where I work. It has a lot going for it: a) It is easy to replicate: most every language school/company I have had contact with here employs it in some way. b) The industry is designed for it. (It’s pretty easy to call up your local ESL bookshop and buy level appropriate material. c) Students tend to expect it. I think, perhaps, this is the strangest thing of all: students actually expect you to follow the book model - and even complain when they don’t get it.
I’m pretty sure the "book method" works. Somehow. But I wonder if it’s the most effective strategy to adapt. Is it really THE most effective thing you could be doing with your students?
Making Meaning: Is the industry broken?
Idea: Maybe the ESL industry is broken. We’re used to doing things the way I described above. Everyone is doing it. The public expects it. But it’s broken. We’re just buying books, filling in blanks, doing practice activities, engaging in, many times, boxed in conversation, and then filling out exams. I’ve seen students blow through books - successfully performing all the activities, and passing all the exams, but with little to no improvement in their real world langauge necesities. (The English they need to use OUTSIDE the classroom is often left unimproved- or what was learned does not filter out to where it’s needed. I’m not sure which.)
Fixing Tinkering with TESOL
I suggest that there’s a better - but more difficult path to explore. Instead of relying solely on course book content, classes should be built around the specific needs of each of your students. Corporate lawyers will have very different language development needs vs. a Marketing manager - yet the classic approach is to lump everyonetogetheraccordingtolanguagelevel instead of according to language needs AND language level.
This approach is not easy. It’s not efficient either, at least in the short term. But I wonder: would the more awkward and tailored approach eventually catch up to - and even surpass current ESL industry practices given time as far as effectiveness goes?
Some interesting reads that I think have to do with this post:
"The validity of the action learning process is well-grounded in research on how adults learn — which is predominantly via on-the-job "real-time" experiences. Sound action learning design provides a stage upon which behavioral performance dynamics can be observed and critiqued, and from which new choices and behavioral improvements can emerge." (Action Learning: A Recipe for Success. Marshall Goldsmith)
– Action Learning could and should be applied to as many ESL classroom experiences as we can. We should be thinking "How can I make these lessons as close to real life as I can possibly make them. How can I get chapter exercises OUT of their chapters so that they fit into Student needs.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
– Nuf said. Just cus everyone is going in the same direction doesn’t necessarily mean that they have found the right direction…just means that path is easier to take.
http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/future-textbooks/#comment-3591
The three most fundamental parts of our newly certain knowledge are:
-What we teach is not the same as what students learn
-There is a long delay and many stages between coming across the language for the first time and mastering it
-People learn differently and so learn different things at different speeds
Until a textbook deals with the points above (and I have yet to see a teacher’s book that even mentions all three in full), whether we teach more natural English, more collocations, more international English etc. is not really a question I can get excited about. The question is how we teach any of these points.
What do you think? Should more tinkering be done with TESOL? Class delivery? Text books?
I ask myself and my audience this: What does it take to start making poverty history? The answer is simple: 1. Use what’s in your hands. (hint: you don’t have to be the UN or a country president with wide access to resources.) 2. Use intelligence to invest what you have. 3. Decide to act, and ACT. 